three Rivers: cordwood sauna

During the first two weekends in June 2023, we hosted two cordwood workshops at Crane’s Landing to work on a timber-framed sauna. The instructor was Charles Yaeger, a master cordwood builder, who has constructed a number of beautiful saunas in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. More than twenty students participated in this project over the course of six days!

Before the workshop participants arrived, we had poured a concrete slab foundation, built and raised a 10’x16’ sauna frame, installed a metal roof, laid two courses of concrete blocks, moved in the sauna stove, built window boxes, and collected hundreds of glass bottles, jars, blocks, and insulators. In the course of the workshops, the students worked on:

• debarking logs

• treating wood with borax

• filing down log ends

• making glass “bricks” from wine bottles cut in half, whole beer bottles taped together, glass blocks, and various combinations of glass jars and insulators

• installing furring strips along the frame to help with mortar adhesion

• pounding nails into the furring strips to give the mortar additional anchors to grab on to

• mixing mortar

• making insulation

• building up a cordwood wall

• tuck-pointing

• installing window boxes

• making and installing a header for the large front window

• placing refractory mortar and stonework around the sauna stove

We are so grateful to everyone who attended these workshops and assisted us with this project. We made a lot of progress and got cordwood up on every wall! We hope to finish the sauna soon!.